national poetry day

Hopefully this is a day full of celebration and discovery of new poets! You can download the free ebook Messages: A National Poetry Day book here. I’ve only had a brief skim through it so far, but I’m pretty impressed with it.

In celebration, I have decided to review two of my more recent poetry purchases:

This is a very interesting anthology that explores what it means to be British or American immigrants. Bureaucracy, disappointment and hope are ever-present. I thought that it could have been a bit more experimental – there were a couple pages that made poetry out of documentation and emails. I would’ve liked to see a little more like this.

I think that this could be an interesting book to read alongside Refugee Tales (review here) and The Good Immigrant (which I haven’t read yet). I like the idea of reading different genres of literature that focus on similar topics, anyway.

This uses fairy tales and the family to explore otherness and what it means to be human. I haven’t quite finished it yet, but I’m hugely interested to see how Webb will develop these themes! There’s a couple really interesting poems about family relationships composed as a pantheon of gods, which I liked in particular. I might write up some of my favourite quotes – stay tuned!

To finish up, I’m just going to link you to a short poem about refugees. Listen to it.